Personal computers and computer-like devices, such as gaming consoles, are capable of hosting games which allow individuals and/or groups of individuals to explore and interact with a virtual environment. Examples of gaming consoles include Sony's PLAYSTATION® series of consoles and Microsoft's XBOX® series of consoles. The virtual environments presented in these games are highly detailed and typically present a gamer with a fantasy, science fiction, historical, or futuristic milieu.
Computer gaming began as a single player experience. Subsequently, multiplayer games were created allowing more than one player to play the same game at the same time, either cooperatively to achieve a common goal, as a competition against one another, or a mixture of both. Aspects of the game where players compete with or against computer controlled entities are generally known as player versus environment (hereinafter “PvE”), while aspects of the game where players compete against other players are generally known as player versus player (hereinafter “PvP”). Initially, multiplayer games were designed for multiple players to play on a single computer or computer-like device. However, as networking technology became more common, multiplayer games were designed to be played by different players each playing on their own computer or computer-like device.
As computer and computer-like devices become more powerful, and as network connectivity (including connectivity to the Internet) became more prevalent, the complexity of computer games and the number of simultaneous players increased. One genre of computer games is designed for play by a large number of simultaneous players. Such games are typically known as massively multiplayer online role playing games, or MMORPGs. These games are also sometimes known as massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs. For consistency, this document will use only the term MMORPG. Examples of MMORPGs include, for example, ULTIMA ONLINE®, EVERQUEST®, STAR WAR GALAXIES®, SHADOWBANE®, CITY OF VILLANS®, CITY OF HEROS®, FINAL FANTASY XI®, WORLD WAR II ONLINE®, EVE ONLINE®, EVERQUEST II®, WORLD OF WARCRAFT®, and DUNGEONS AND DRAGON ONLINE®.
A MMORPG permits a large number of people to share a virtual experience together by allowing the individual players to interact with each other in small and large groups. Players create alternate personas in the form of player characters. Players generally have the ability to customize their player characters' appearance, physical, and mental attributes. For example, a player can customize his character by selecting gender, facial appearance, body type, hair color/styles, skin tone, and clothing. Additionally, a character can be associated with additional attributes consistent with the theme of the MMORPG. For example, within a fantasy themed MMORPG, a player typically can choose to play a character selected from any of several races and classes. Examples of available races may include, humans, wood elves, high elves, dwarves, gnomes, dark elves, trolls, and ogres. Examples of classes may include clerics, druids, shamans, rangers, paladins, shadow knights, warriors, monks, rogues, bards, enchanters, magicians, necromancers, and wizards. Each of these choices may affect the appearance and capabilities of the player character.
By controlling their actions, players can cause their player characters to interact with other player characters and computer generated non-player characters in a computer generated virtual (or game) world. These actions may affect the status of the players characters and/or the environment of the game world, and thus further affect the appearance and/or capabilities of the player characters. Most MMORPGs permit multiple avenues for advancement of player characters. These may include defeating enemies in combat, performing quests (quests are discussed in greater detail in relationship to FIG. 6, below), exploration, or engaging in artisan activities. In many MMORPGs, successfully completing an activity which provides for advancement is rewarded by an award of experience points. Player characters may be organized into a series of increasingly powerful levels, with each increasing experience level requiring an increased accumulation of experience points. Higher level characters may fight with greater skill, tolerate a greater degree of damage before being defeated, have a wider range of abilities, or be capable of casting more powerful spells.
Further, while many MMORPGs permit player characters to advance by engaging in solo activities within the game world, the core of many MMORPGs is social interaction between the various players. Accordingly, MMORPGs generally permit player characters to form groups and for those groups to work together at a common goal. In order to facilitate group formation, many MMORPGs may include in-game features to facilitate group formation. For example, player characters can be visibly flagged by their players as “looking for a group” (hereinafter “LFG”). Alternatively, the game world may provide predetermined locations for player characters who are looking for a group to gather.
FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 for playing a MMORPG. Players 110a each install computer programs known as the game client 120a, 120b on their respective computers 130a or computer-like devices 130b. These devices 130a, 130b connect, via a network 140, which may be the Internet, to a game system 150. While there are various business models for recouping the costs of developing a MMORPG and operating the game system 150, players 110a are typically charged a fixed amount to purchase the game client software 120a, 120b and then pay a monthly fee for access to the game system.
The game system 150 includes at least one game server 151 for maintaining the state of the game world. Except for scheduled downtime to perform upgrades and administrative tasks, the server 151 is generally operated continuously, resulting in a game world which is persistent. Further, in order to avoid overcrowding of the virtual world, most MMORPGs support multiple shards (also known as instances) of the virtual world. Each shard generally shares a same basic design, but are generally populated by different sets of player characters. Thus, while each shard begins with a common set of initial states, the difference in actions taken by the player characters of each shard will cause each shard to have its own unique state. Alternatively, some shards may be operated using alternate rules of play, and thus may start with a different state than the common state. For example, in a game where most shards are operated in a predominately PvE mode, some shards may be operated to permit a greater range of PvP activities.
Typically, each shard is supported by its own hardware. For example, each shard may be supported by its own game server 151. Generally, administrative mechanism are built into the game system 150 to support moving characters between shards, thereby permitting expanding the number of game servers 151 when the MMORPG is increasing in number of players and contracting the number of game servers 151 when the MMORPG is decreasing in number of players.
The game system 150 may include other servers aside from one or more game servers 151. For example, most MMORPGs utilize at least one authentication server 152 for authenticating player log-ins to the game system 150. Most MMORPGs provide chat and/or message board services to its players. Such services may be provided by one or more messaging servers 153. Preferably, messaging servers 153 provide the chat and message board services via a web based interface. Further, most MMORPGs bill players a subscription fee for accessing the server. Billing services may be provided by one or more billing servers 154. Preferably, the billing servers 154 also provide a web based interface for players to enter and edit their contact and billing information.
Also shown in FIG. 1 is a game master 111. The operation of any MMORPG generally requires a number of game masters. Each game master 111 is a customer service agent for the entity which runs the game system 150. Their role in the MMORPG may be to address customer issues. Such issues may include a character which is stuck in the virtual world due to a bug in the MMORPG, arbitrating a dispute between multiple players 110a, or managing special events, such as holiday related events.
As previously noted, the game system 150 maintains the game world in a persistent state. Thus, a player can reasonably expect that even when the player is logged-out of the MMORPG, other players are playing the MMORPG and thus, changing the state of the virtual world. Typically, a player can log-out of the MMORPG under certain predetermined conditions (e.g., the player's character is not engaged in combat, or the player's character is located in a safe location within the virtual world). When the player logs-out of the MMORPG, the state of the player's character is saved by the server and then the player's character is removed (i.e., vanishes from the perspective of other characters) from the virtual world. Conversely, when the player logs-in to the MMORPG, the state of the player's character is restored and the player's character is inserted (i.e., appears from the perspective of other characters) into the game world at the same location as when the player logged out of the MMORPG. In FIG. 1, players 110a represent players which are logged-in to the MMORPG, and therefore have characters which appear in the virtual world, while players 110b represent players which have logged-out the MMORPG, and therefore do not have characters which appear in the virtual world.
Many of the players 110b who are logged-off the MMORPG would like to be able to further participate in the affairs of the virtual world supported by the MMORPG. Such players 110b may not have access to a computer 130a or computer-like devices 130b to run the regular game client 120a, 120b. Although such players 110b may have mobile devices, generally, it is impractical to run a version of the standard game client 120a, 120b on the mobile device. This partially due to the enormous amount of data processed by the client 120a, 120b present the virtual world. For example, the game client for the WORLD OF WARCRAFT® requires four gigabytes of memory. Accordingly, there is a need and desire for methods and apparatus to permit a player of the MMORPG to have increased interactions with the MMORPG.